


Insult and Injury {imkai'an}

by ghostwriterofthemachine, loosingletters



Series: Pragmatics of the Jedi [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: 5 Things, Conlang, Dai Bendu, Gen, Jedi Characters, Jedi Culture, Languages and Linguistics, Self-Loathing, Swearing, Vader doing Vader things, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: The worst thing you can call someone in Mando’a iscoward.The worst insult to the Jedi is one they dare not speak often.Five times Anakin Skywalker heard it regardless.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Series: Pragmatics of the Jedi [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885129
Comments: 21
Kudos: 487





	Insult and Injury {imkai'an}

**Author's Note:**

> Mission _Make Canon Worse_ proceeds as expected
> 
> (we're not even sorry)
> 
> Update 13th of October 2020: Due to some adjustments to our phonetics and orthography, edits have been made.

_1._

_Imkai'an!_ the child in his dreams shouts. It’s a boy this time, Padmé’s coloring through and through. They were standing on a soft and green meadow just moments ago, but it slowly melts away together with his skin.

The boy screams and rages, tears through Vader’s suit and burns him worse than Obi-Wan ever could. His hands reach deep into his chest for his heart, tear it out-

 _Imkai'an,_ the child that would have been his, cries.

And Vader weeps with him.

_2._

The bloody Jedi in the cell glares up at him, one last little twist of defiance in their eyes. 

They’re too old to go to the Inquisitorios, and they’ve been useless for intel. Just some low-ranking, nothing Knight, who only survived until now on sheer, dumb luck.

And yet they are looking at him as if he is the scum on their boots.

"Imkai'an," they spit at him. They say it like a fact that they cannot change, but are disgusted with. They might not even know he understands it. They do not say it like they're expecting it to hurt him; they're saying it as if only for themselves. 

Vader pretends it does not hurt him. He raises a hand.

"I do not like to hear that language," he says, as he crushes the Jedi's throat.

_3._

He sobs the word into Padmé’s chest. She cards her kind ( _so-kind-you-don’t-DESERVE-IT_ ) hands through his hair, hushes him, tries to get him calm enough to speak more clearly. 

“What are you saying?” she repeats, over and over, voice soothing and low and insistent. “Anakin, I don’t understand what you’re saying, please, Ani, tell me what happened—”

But he can’t, he cannot conceptualize this into Basic, he cannot tell her what he’s become now in any tongue other than this one.

“ _Imkai'an,"_ he curses himself, carves it into his soul. “ _Imkai'an, imkai'an, tamah foh nev imkai'an. Heleo. Heleo,_ Padmé. _Tamah foh nev imkai'an.”_

And that is the truth of it, now. He’s done it, and it can’t be changed. Their blood is caked onto his lightsaber hilt. They are animals, and he killed them without thought.

_4._

_“Imkai'an_ ,” the boy hisses. His eyes are alight with fury, blue skies filled with rage, so similar to his own. His pronunciation of the word is off, like he isn’t used to the vowels’ flow. Vader doesn’t expect it. He thought that with Kenobi feeding him lies, the boy would be fluent, have the same Coruscanti lilt. 

The image is one of his night terrors, but Vader prevails. He’d make the child forget every letter, every lie once told to him (except, this one was not-)

“Do you know what that word means, Skywalker?”

"It means that you kill without considering the life you're taking. It means senseless murderer."

Vader thinks about pulling this word directly from this child's mind. Crushing the concept itself between his fists, so he never had to think of it again.

"You speak a lot in that language," he says, "for someone who was not taught it."

“I know enough!” Luke shouts back.

“Then you should know not to use it,” Vader replies.

His son breathes heavily, but he breathes. He is alive, not killed in anger, and soon he will be at Vader’s side. They will overthrow the emperor together, he will give his son the crown he deserved. The empire Vader built, no longer a tomb, but a laurel wreath.

“It was for you,” Vader says. “This was all for you and it was worth it.”

And he’d do it over and over again if it meant that he could keep his son

But Luke— 

But Luke is looking at him— 

Luke is looking at him with an expression so fixedly horrified, so disturbed, with such soul-deep _distraught_ and near repulsion, that Vader feels it like a blow to the chest.

"You killed millions, and you tore everything good apart, and you left me to grow up with the galaxy in this state. Father, you only just met me. Do not lie to yourself. Do not taint any love we might have with that statement."

_5._

This is a memory. 

Obi-Wan is young and bent. Anakin should be asleep.

Instead, he leans against the door to his bedroom, and listens. Obi-Wan has a friend over. Quinlan, who Anakin has met a few times and thinks is terrific fun, is perched on their kitchen table, face oddly serious. Obi-Wan is pacing back and forth in their kitchen area.

“It was—” says Obi-Wan, and then he gulps at the air. “Quin, the Dark coming off him. It felt like it _reached out from him_ , touched anything near it. I felt like it touched me. I’ve never felt _xari_ like that before, Quin. _Xari_ is a room filled with smoke. This was a pillow held over your face, pushed there maliciously. That’s what _sii_ is. And it almost pulled me into it.” 

“But it didn’t,” Quin says, voice low and solid and warm. “You fought it, and you fought the Sith. You won against both.”

“The rage I felt, though.” Obi-Wan stops moving then. He presses the heels on his hands into his eyes. “When I saw what he did to Qui-Gon. What that _imkai'an_ did to my Master—”

“What’s _imkai'an_ mean?” Anakin doesn’t mean to say it, but the question just pops out. 

Obi-Wan and Quinlan whirl around to face him. Obi-Wan goes slightly gray, and Quinlan laughs out loud. 

“I thought you were in bed,” Obi-Wan groans. 

“I was,” says Anakin, “but I woke up and now I wanna know. What’s _imkai'an_ mean?”

Quinlan pushes himself away from the table, and kneels in front of Anakin. “It is,” he says, and reaches out to bop Anakin’s nose, “a very, very mean and rude word, that you should never use on anyone, ever.”

“Like sleemo?” Anakin asks. This is good. He likes new swear words.

“Bit stronger than that,” Quin laughs.

Obi-Wan sighs. “It means ‘senseless killer.’ A murderer who kills with no thought to how that death will affect the future. It is,” he pauses, considers, continues, “about the worst thing I can think of, to call another person. I think most Jedi would agree.”

**Author's Note:**

> TRANSLATION NOTES:
> 
>  _imkai'an:_ An insult of the highest degree. 
> 
> From the word "imkai," which means 'to kill' and literally translates to "no life." This is word and its iterations are used very specifically in Jedi culture and language. "Pai'imkai" is used most often. While it means “to take a life/kill,” the "pai" prefix literally means "this action will have future consequences" when applied to a verb. Pai'imkai means that you understand the weight of this choice, and that you regard the life you took and understand the world will be different without it. "Imkai" is “to murder without any regard for that life.” And "imkai'an" is a senseless murderer, someone who kills for the sake of it, with no thought to the meaning of that life at all.
> 
>  _Heleo:_ An apology, begging forgiveness. 
> 
> _xari:_ The Dark side of the Force, but not necessarily the Sith.
> 
>  _sii:_ The Dark side of the Force, specifically the Sith. All those Fallen are xari, but not everyone xari is sii (in fact, very few are, up until TMP).


End file.
